


Like A Bad Metaphor

by a_xmasmurder



Series: Marvel Bites [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes finds a Friend, Cats, Gen, Minor Angst, Pets, bathtime, strays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 12:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2428139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_xmasmurder/pseuds/a_xmasmurder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky plus cat. She's fitting in well, until she tries to eat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A Bad Metaphor

It’s been two weeks since Bucky brought the kitten home, and no one has suspected a thing aside from Natasha. Bucky is very worried for the world because if this is what the Avenger’s collective observational skills amounted to, the world is screwed. He leans back in his office chair and sticks his stocking feet on the ink blotter, Stark-erized iPad - basically a starkPad if you think about it - lying in his lap displaying a television show he’s taken to. It’s called “How It’s Made” or something like that. It’s very interesting and educational to someone like him, someone who’s missed a few decades. Steve turned him on to it, and it is definitely worth it. Tonight’s episode is glass ornaments, and he’s only half-listening to it because he’s watching the orange terror lay waste to a roll of toilet paper. The single-mindedness she has when she’s attacking something is fascinating to Bucky, especially since she seems to be so flighty when it comes to just about anything else. Bucky smiles, the expression feeling not as alien as the other times he’s tried it on for Steve or Sam.

Without any warning, the furball flips out and tears ass out of his bedroom, leaving Bucky staring at the aftermath of Hurricane Tabby. White flakes of paper float to the carpet as the remains of the roll wobbles to a halt on the floor. Bucky blinks away the mirage of a cat. “Alright then.” He is used to the storm of activity by now, but the speed baffles him still. He looks back down at the tablet and contemplates trying to go to bed without alcohol. He hasn’t slept in a couple days. Nightmares. Memories. Dr. Doom trying to take over Manhattan again. The usual. He normally takes a bottle of whiskey or vodka to bed with him on these nights; not like the alcohol actually does anything to him now, but at least the idea is comforting. He’d rather not have to resort to Steve’s methods of relaxation, which involve training so hard that he passes out on the workout mats and is woken up by Clint using him as target practice with an Airsoft gun. He grabs up the control for the sound system and presses play. Soft jazz floats out of the speakers, and Bucky leans further back and closes his eyes, promising himself that he will not just nap in the chair all night.

**CRASH!**

He’s out of the chair and in the kitchen before his brain registers anything other than the adrenaline shoved into his bloodstream. His knife is in his right hand, his left hand held loose and ready to grab any assailant dumb enough to break into his apartment. Forget that he’s at the Tower and that he should actually congratulate any idiot who’s able to get past J.A.R.V.I.S.. But that’s not on his mind. Tactical analysis and takedown techniques are foremost as he takes in the whole room, triangulating as he goes. It takes a moment to see the problem because he’s not looking for a kitten in the sink covered in potting soil and honey, he’s looking for a H.Y.D.R.A. agent or Clint looking for a midnight snack. His sharp eyes pass over the poor orange tabby again as he looks for blood on the counter, on the floor, on the doors or the window helpfully installed in the east wall. Finally, the ‘oh shit’ meter in his head clicks over into the all-clear zone and he actually sees her, who is now yowling pitifully and trying to unstick her tail from her hip by pawing at it.

“Oh, man.” He slips the knife into his low-back sheath and rubs his head. “You’ve done it now, little one.” He walks over to the sink, and the pieces of the puzzle of how she got herself into this fell into place when he sees the mess of the cabinet over the sink. “You wanted your dry kibble, so you go on a kamikaze mission to extricate it from enemy hands. Now you are trapped behind the lines and you’ve alerted the guards. What are you going to do now?”

“Myeeeeeeeeah!” She yowls again and climbs out of the sink, trailing sticky dirt and leaf matter everywhere. Bucky winced when he saw the wreckage of the potted pansies he’d picked up earlier that week from a grocery store.

“You aren’t hurt, are you?” Now he’s really looking for blood. She doesn’t seem to be in pain, and he can’t see anything in the sink other than broken pottery and dirt. Oh, and the bowl of honey. Why was there a bowl of honey in his sink? Whatever. Doesn’t matter now because his cat is covered in all of it. “Well, nothing for it. We’ll have to give you a bath.”

When he thinks back on this moment, he is going to regret deciding to bathe a cat. He will think to himself while waiting for Sam to patch him up for the third time this week, ‘You know, cats don’t really like water. Why don’t you just shave her? That’s got to be safer than what you just tried to do.’. But he doesn’t think about that now. It probably would have saved a lot of time and blood if he had. Dignity, too. Bucky’s big on dignity. He refused to lose his dignity with H.Y.D.R.A.. He refused to lose his dignity when Steve and Sam finally brought him in from the cold. But he damned sure loses his dignity in spectacular style with this little shit of a kitten. Because the moment he reaches for her and the faucet at the same time - no one told him how to bathe a cat, so he is going to improvise - she disappears. She doesn’t run. She doesn’t hiss or bat at him. She just phases out of existence.

“Holy shit.” Bucky whirls around, searching for the sticky little thing. “You are fast.” She’s on the back of the couch. Normally, she’s hiding or ghosting around when Steve’s in Bucky’s side of the floor. But the whole thing with the honey and dirt has her a little out-of-sorts. So when Rogers opens the door and calls out to Bucky to let him know where he’s at in the room, she stays put.

Steve pulls up short, a case of beer and a bottle of whiskey occupying one hand and three frozen pizzas taking up the other. He stares at the kitten, then stares at Bucky. His gaze slides back to her, and as he opens his mouth to say something, Bucky realizes the door is still open.

So does she.

“Shit, Stevie, close the - “ Too late. The kitten escapes down the hall. Bucky slaps his metal hand to his forehead. “Crap.”

Steve stares after the kitten. “Uh, was that a -”

“Yeah.” Bucky reaches for his shirt and slides past his friend out the door, on a mission to find the little terror. The trail isn’t hard to track, since she’s left bits of dirt and shiny patches of honey down the hall. The stairwell door is open just a crack, which is just a glaring security issue that Bucky will have to bring up to Stark because a building is only as secure as its weakest point. He sees a scraping of honey and dirt on the brushed steel kick panel, and he grins. “Found you.” He pushes the door open and heads down the stairs on pure instinct. The next few doors are closed, but the sixth floor has the escape the kitten is looking for, and Bucky sees a freed tail disappear through the opening. He speeds up, taking the stairs three at a time, and pushes through the door in time to see the tabby flit through the door of the conference room Stark set up for them because ‘I’ll be damned before I let you crazies set up shop in my living room and stain the couch with blood after saving the world for the hundredth time’. At least, that was his excuse. Everyone knew that the couch is reserved for Movie Nights only, blood-covered or not. Natasha told him a story one night after a shared bottle of vodka about how Steve and Tony bonded over medical supplies, cold compresses and ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’. The couch had to be replaced entirely because there’s nothing in the ‘Vinegar, Duct Tape, Milk Jugs and More’ book that can help take a mix of asphalt, alien and superhero blood, and whatever the fuck that blue goo was out of high-end upholstery. But at least those two don’t try beating the stuffing out of each other anymore. Natasha counts it as a win.

He pushes the conference room door open wide and is met with the effects of ‘what would happen if you suddenly drop a kitten in front of a bunch of superheroes with no warning’. So apparently there is actually a meeting going on in the room, one that Steve is obviously skipping out on to drink and eat cardboard pizza with him - and isn’t that a strange thing - and his kitten is sitting smack dab in the middle of the ridiculously gigantic ebony table, going to town trying to bathe herself while also keeping a sharp eye on the people she’s surrounded by. Clint is grinning in equal parts surprise and shocked horror, hands already out to try to grab the wayward feline. His mouth is working, but Bucky can’t hear what he’s saying. Natasha’s got a twist in her lips that just screams that she’s surprised it’s even taken this long for the (pun intended) cat to be let out of the bag. Thor is positively glowing with glee, which worries Bucky something fierce. Tony, unfortunately, is frozen in place at the whiteboard - WHITEBOARD? Bucky turns one part of his attention to the man. “I wasn’t even aware you knew what a whiteboard was, Stark.”

Tony blinks. “I have my reasons. That is not important. There is a cat on my table.”

“Yes. It’s - she’s - mine. My cat. And I need to give her a bath.”

And to cement the sentiment that she does listen to him and knows what he’s saying at any given time, the narrow-eyed glare she gives him should have felled him. She also let out a low hiss that is nothing short of adorable coming from a thing that doesn’t even weigh as much as a sack of sugar. Bucky huffs and walks over and leans out to grab her off the table. “C’mon, dust mite. You and I have a date with the tub and some shampoo.”

And here is where he loses his dignity. Because no man’s voice should reach octaves that high unless his balls are in mortal danger. But it is his bare chest that is in the firing line, since his shirt is still in his hand; he hadn’t planned on putting it on, he was going to use it to wrap the tabby up so that she wouldn’t struggle too much. That plan goes out the window right quick when the little shit leaps at him in a bid to escape and digs every sharp instrument she has at her disposal into his skin. One back talon hooks into a nipple, and the game is over.

Bucky howls in brain-sparking pain and claps one shaking hand over the tabby’s scruff, gripping firmly but carefully - every fragged survival center in his brain is screaming at him to eliminate the threat, but when the threat is barely two pounds of miserable sticky fur and warm beating heart that hasn’t hurt anything other than his nipple - “Leggo of me, you gutter tramp! I’m not gonna hurt you!” He tries to pry her from his chest, but she clings tighter, and employs another of her baby-sharp weapons. Her teeth clamp down on his collar bone, and while he starts cussing about that Clint appears at his shoulder with a warm towel. Bucky is confused. “Where’d you find that?” Bucky winces because the poor thing in his hand is trembling. She’s terrified and is only fighting because she probably thought she was going to get killed. He knows first hand what that feels like.

“Nevermind that.” Clint lays the towel over her, murmuring softly at her the whole time. It’s nonsense words, not even in English or Russian. Bucky thinks it’s an Arabic dialect or something. And slowly, slowly, she starts releasing him. He can feel the blood trickling down his chest almost as an afterthought. Clint is still babbling - it can’t be called anything else - as he bundles her up and pulls her away. Two quick folds and the kitten is wrapped burrito-style and blinking at both of them with wide blue eyes.

Bucky glances at Clint, who only shrugs. “Grew up with half-wild cats. Good mousers. Not too keen on the human contact thing. When we’d try catching them, we had to use towels or risk having to go to the emergency room.” And that is possibly the most information about his past that he’s ever told anyone. Bucky feels very special all of a sudden, but the feeling fades as he takes in his surroundings once more. Now Bucky gets to face a whole different situation. Steve is in the room now, still holding his pizza and the alcohol, and everyone is staring at Bucky still. Well, him and his cat. His cat. He looks down at her and realizes he’s holding the bundle like a baby. Well, color him completely terrified of the sudden rock at the bottom of his stomach.

“Myeh.” The tiny peep of apology and the slow blink makes him smile, even if it’s the barest bit wobbly.

“So.” Of course Stark is the first to speak. “There’s a cat in my building.”

Bucky looks up and nods. “Yes, sir.”

“Okay.” Tony shrugs, and Bucky lets out a breath he doesn’t remember holding. “Meeting finished. Steve, I have a bone to pick with you because you were supposed to be here so that I wouldn’t have to do this.”

“Bucky hasn’t been sleeping, so I skipped out to be with him.” Steve says it so matter-of-factly that Bucky just sits in the nearest open chair in shock.

“Uh, thanks?” He’s still holding the kitten. He looks down. “I’m gonna name you Little Shit, howzat?”

“Myeh.”

Bucky’s certain he’s gonna get reamed by Tony in the morning, but right now all seems to be well in the microworld that is the Tower.


End file.
